


Overcast Skies

by awkwardsorta



Category: Football RPF
Genre: FC Chelsea, Gen, New Club, New Country, New Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardsorta/pseuds/awkwardsorta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from the love story that is Juan Mata's life: a new club, a new country, new experiences and new teammates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overcast Skies

Cesar arrives at the club on a cold, wet Thursday in August. Juan is there to meet him, having arrived on a similarly cold, wet August day a year earlier. The squad has been back training for nigh-on a month, but Cobham is empty on this afternoon after a short morning’s training, the players and staff drifting off into the steady drizzle back to families and sofas and bemoaning the English summer. Juan sticks around: ostensibly to follow up some paperwork that needs some translator help, but just as much to be a friendly face.

He’s in the office when Cesar shows up, flagged by the club’s usual patrol of translator, player liaison and selected executives. Juan smiles through the crowd and Cesar’s face lights up and he waves.

“Juan!” he says. “Hey man, how’s it going?”

A space appears for Juan to step in and give him a hug and a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’m doing well,” he says. “Welcome to England!”

Cesar laughs. “Oh I see,” he says, “It’s your country now?”

Juan laughs with him. “Well yes,” he says, and shrugs helplessly. “I suppose it is.”

 

 

Before Chelsea, Juan had visited London on a couple of occasions though only for days at a time. Some with squads, when their only views had been from the plane and then coach windows. Once with his family on a long weekend when he was fourteen. They saw the museums and the Palace, and the Tower, and they saw a lot of rain, and then they were home again and Juan talked about the trip in his English speaking exam that summer. He didn’t think then of how he might use it one day, or of returning to the city, only of living up to his potential and to the expectations of those around him.

Now when he looks back he is relieved at the diligence of his younger self. To walk into the changing rooms at Cobham and not be adrift is a lifesaver in itself. To be the one translating Frank’s halting attempts at Spanish as the others laugh and tease Frank, instead of the one on the end of the incomprehensible jokes.

Juan’s English is about as good as Fernando’s, which people laugh about. Juan wonders sometimes how Fernando is not totally fluent, but he doesn’t judge. He doesn’t know how easy he would find it if he hadn’t tried so hard at school. And sometimes Juan has to ask him to repeat things when they come out in the strange vowels of the Liverpool accent, and then Fernando laughs, pleased, and lays the accent on heavy. Juan’s glad that Fernando has that identity. Though he has left the city behind, he still has somewhere he called his own, and some days that seems to strengthen him.

They are at Fernando’s flat one afternoon for food and a film. It’s a few weeks into the season and Cesar has settled in to the team like he has been there longer than any of them. His quick laugh and easy-going approach appeal to the others and Luiz and Ramires are quick to draw him into their lifestyle. Juan goes once to their Brazilian clubs and spends the evening laughing at Cesar’s foolish, happy dancing.

Cesar is wandering around Fernando’s living room, looking at all the pictures and the trophies and the memories of a long career that is not yet over. He picks up a framed picture of Fernando and Gerrard, arms around each other and wearing paper hats from christmas crackers. He is looking at it when Fernando comes back into the room. Fernando glances over and then says, “Food will be ready in half an hour.”

He places some bowls of tapas on the coffee table, and Juan says, “Can I help with anything?”

Cesar has moved onto another picture. Fernando smiles at Juan. “No, but thanks.”

 

 

Oriol and Juan arrived within a few weeks of each other. Oriol was quiet, a little shy perhaps. Juan had known him for years, but realised he didn’t know much about Oriol at all, not off the pitch. He took Oriol around London with him, because Fernando was always busy at home, and none of the other players were interested in museums and galleries and old buildings that once meant something.

Maybe Oriol wasn’t interested either, but he came along anyway. In Westminster Abbey they stood with their heads tipped far back, and Oriol said, “That’s pretty amazing.”

“It’s beautiful,” Juan said, and he didn’t stop looking till long after Oriol had got tired and wandered away to the altar.

Oriol still comes with him sometimes, and he is there the day Juan tells Cesar that he should come to the South Bank with him.

“They have this market, like, a books market? With tables and tables of secondhand books,” he says. “Under a bridge, and there’s the BFI there, and the London Eye.”

Cesar grins at him, and Oriol, overhearing their conversation, laughs. “Juan man,” he says, “You have got to sell these things better.”

But then he asks if he can come, and so Juan doesn’t try to sell anything better. They browse books and Cesar laughs at Oriol’s pronunciation of English titles, and they get recognised a couple of times but Juan doesn’t mind. The fans are so friendly, with their thick accents that make him have to lean in to hear properly, telling him how good he is and that they’re going to win in Europe again this year.

“They are like an extended family,” Juan says. “Don’t you think?”

“But what about Valencia,” Cesar says.

“They are my extended family too. I have them all over the world.” Juan smiles at Cesar, and Oriol, and they smile back and shake their heads.

 

 

Juan has an apartment two floors up from Fernando and the views are a little better. He tells this to Fernando one evening when they are eating together. The doors to the balcony are wide open and Juan is leaning over the railings, peering upstream. “Did you know that you can’t see the power station from here? I’ve never noticed that.”

“Did I know that there’s something I can’t see from my balcony?” Fernando follows him out. “It’s freezing out here, Juan. Shut the doors.”

Juan shivers, then. “Alright,” he says, “I’ll come in. Calm down.”

Fernando puts him in a half-hearted headlock when they’re back inside, and they playfight their way to the kitchen.

Over dinner, Juan says, “I was thinking of doing a Christmas thing, a Spanish thing you know, at my place. What d’you think?”

Fernando shrugs. “Sure,” he says, helping himself to more omelette.

“I mean, like, we can have what we usually have at Christmas, and... I don’t know. I guess I remember last Christmas, and it was weird, not having a break.”

“It gets less weird,” Fernando says.

“Of course. I know. But it will be weird for Cesar this year maybe.”

Fernando smiles at him, dimples showing. “Hey Juanito,” he says. “Is this like when you’re all ‘oh my friend was wondering...’, and you really mean you?”

“Oh shut up.” Juan grins.

 

 

Juan tells Cesar at training the next day and Cesar’s face lights up. “Oh!” he says. “Like on the sixth? Hey, can we do presents?”

“No Spanish,” Fernando says straight-faced as he jogs past, and Juan snorts. This is rich, coming from Fernando, who pretty much only communicated in mumbled Spanish when he was going through a bad patch.

Juan continues. “Well I was thinking more like the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, but yeah we could do the sixth instead.”

“What is that? A - Saturday?”

“A Sunday,” Juan says. “We have Southampton on the Saturday.”

They jog half the pitch in silence, then Cesar says, “Where is Southampton, man?”

David jogs up on his other side as Juan is preparing to explain. “Hey guys,” he says, slightly out of breath. “Hey Dave.”

Cesar laughs, and Juan discards the conversation.

 

 

Oriol picks up an injury just before they go to Japan. Juan is there when he comes out of the medical room and Oriol’s face tells him everything.

“Hey,” Juan says, and then he just runs out of words. “Come over?”

Oriol shrugs, but he comes anyway and so Juan feels a little better. In the car he asks Oriol, “Did you see the scans?”

Oriol shrugs again, but he says, “Yeah, whatever they mean.”

Juan can’t leave meetings like that without understanding everything about the scans, every minute detail, every possibility. He has never yet had a serious injury though, and so he keeps quiet.

“Six months,” Oriol says, looking out the side window, and Juan doesn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Oriol-”

They get back to Juan’s apartment and he says, as they walk in, “Hey, for once? I will cook.”

Oriol doesn’t laugh quite but he smiles. “No way,” he says. “Are you serious? I’m already injured, I don’t want food poisoning as well.”

Juan hits him lightly in the side, and Oriol heaves himself down onto the couch.

They go to Japan without him. Juan sits next to Fernando on the flight. His children have written him letters to open on the plane and Juan gets to read them over Fernando’s shoulder. There are pictures of Fernando by temples and eating with chopsticks, pictures of him on a plane, and, inexplicably, with two dogs.

“Do your children know why you’re going to Japan?”

Fernando laughs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, I thought they did, but apparently I’m just going for a holiday. With our dogs.”

They talk a little and eat a little but they sleep for hours. Juan blacks out underneath a blanket and when he wakes up again the cabin is quiet and dark. Fernando is slumped over next to him, his long legs hanging off his footrest into the aisle. Juan opens the shutters an inch but there is little to see, only dark blue clouds stretching off to the horizon. He thinks about taking a picture but he doesn’t want to move around too much and wake Fernando.

Juan lies back in his seat and replaces his blanket over his head. It shuts out a little of the roar of the engines and gives him space to think. He is so lucky to go to Japan. He is so lucky to have people in other countries who talk to him and welcome him into their lives. Before they left he browsed around the internet, looked in books and watched Lost in Translation for the tenth time. He wondered again at how many other cultures there were in the world, how many places to find out about. Right now, Juan thinks he might like to learn Japanese. He thinks maybe he could persuade some of his teammates to join in. Petr might like the idea.

 

 

In Yokohama they go out to a bowling alley one evening and the bowling is fun but the walk there is better. Cesar is, for once, struck into silence. He walks by Juan’s side and together they stare up at the towers of light and colour. He looks at Juan and he laughs. “It makes London seem normal, right?”

Juan grins at him, overcome. “Yeah,” he says. “Man, it - imagine living here.”

“I can’t,” Cesar says. “I’d never get the language anyway.”

Juan can imagine it. He says, “You got English fine, there’s hope for you yet.”

Cesar isn’t listening anyway, distracted as they take a detour to the harbour front. Conversations fade, and the group looks out across the water as one. They stand there for five minutes, just looking, exchanging murmured remarks every now and then, and then Rafa calls them back. As Juan turns his back on the scene he catches Mikel’s eye and they make the same face at each other. “Whew,” Juan says, and Mikel laughs in agreement. “Yeah, wow.”

 

 

The night before the match Juan decides that if he scores he will dedicate the goal to Oriol. There is a space in the dressing room where he should be and Juan misses his easy smile and quiet air. Cesar is involved with some squabble with David that has gone on all day, and, Juan suspects, will be dampened down by Terry sooner rather than later. Fernando is there to take in the new sights and sounds with Juan, but he retreats into himself sometimes. He is too introverted to be around that many people for that length of time, and so Juan finds himself looking around for Oriol, the way he walks with his head tipped down slightly like he is too tall and the way that he pushes Juan a little when he laughs at him, points at him so that other people join in and take over the teasing.

“Wish you were here,” he texts, sends Oriol the view from his hotel room, and the next day he holds up six fingers at the cameras and hopes Oriol is watching.

**Author's Note:**

> NB: Very slightly revised from the version first posted [here](http://fbslashmod.livejournal.com/17180.html).
> 
> Anything that looks like a cute fact I made up is almost certainly canon since I read every article ever. For your viewing/reading pleasure:
> 
> [Chelsea TV - an audience with our Spanish quartet](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xu4bux_an-audience-with-our-spanish-quartet_sport)   
> [Mata dedicates goal to Romeu](http://origin-www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~3008959,00.html)   
> [Petr Cech speaks lots of languages! and other stories](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2075207/Petr-Cech-exclusive-Behind-mask-man-whos-No-1.html)   
> [Chelsea go bowling in Japan!](http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3009392/title/blues-bowled-over-in-japan)   
> [Mata is charming about his new life in England](http://siemprefootball.com/juan-mata-the-interview/)   
> [Mata and Romeo on arriving at Chelsea](http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/2792534)   
> [One Hour Behind, Juan's blog](http://blogs.grada360.com/juanmata/en/)   
> [a Day in the Life: Mata's life in London](http://vimeo.com/51931061)


End file.
